I am fairly sure this cannon is Korean based on what I know of its history. The writing on it may be Chinese or not, I don't know. I am posting the pictures because I noticed that CHF member Altaica... is interested in Asian military history including that of Korea, and I thought he might be able to help with this item. Hopefully it is not so far off the forum's allowed topics as to incur the wrath of the administrators, but if this is not permitted, I apologize.

The bronze cannon is of course an old form of breech-loading weapon. The iron breech is removeable and many were kept loaded, near the weapon, to facilitate rapid firing.

The two objects under the cannon are only to hold it in position for the pictures. The iron swivel mounting appears to be original.

Measurements: 63 kg including iron breech chamber

Length: 105 cm

Bore: 35 mm

Weight: 63 kg

Doesn't look to be quite clear.. and they are not continuous.. rather late and tired now..will try to translate it when I have the time to scrutinize the word.

Seems to be Korean of XIX century - a lot of these guns were taken by French and US navies on Kanghwado island in 1866 and 1871 correspondingly. Characters on the left of pic # 3 sounds like: "Ponbu kungwan jun manho Geum Deuk Won" ("Army officer of Main Commandery, former Manho (an officer in Korean Navy in the midst of Yi dinasty) Geum Deuk Won"). Probably it is the name and title of an officer who was responsible for the casting of the gun. But I am to verify it within this week as the rest of the inscription is not good enough to read quickly and I am strictly limited in time.

Then I am to check if Korea has a Geumdeukwon commandery.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Thank you gentlemen, I look forward to any translating you care to do.

>they are not continuous

Yes there is a lot of overlap on purpose so nothing would be lost. I have a tool that will join these images into one continuous but large image (panoramic view), I may try to use it later.

I can easily re-photograph any of it as well.

>a lot of these guns were taken by French and US navies on Kanghwado island in 1866 and 1871 correspondingly.

We think this gun may well be from the 1871 expedition. It was purchased from an old US Navy family in Philadelphia in the 1960's. There are other physically identical pieces in the US Marine Corps Museum, and in the US Naval Academy Museum, which are known to have come from the events of 1871. As I recall, in the US, the Korean forts were known as the "River Forts." I have a pamphlet published by the Naval Historical Foundation on that conflict, entitled "Marine Amphibious Landing in Korea, 1871." It is Naval Historical Foundation publication Series 2, Number 5, 1 January 1966, Compiled by Miss Carolyn A. Tyson, Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps.

This publication contains reproduced letters sent by officers who were involved. The only description of guns which might be of this type is "brass breech-loaders" (pp. 11) . This description is obviously far too general to be of any use.

I see"fu lang ji" 弗狼机 on it. The Chinese called the Spainish and Portuguese cannons which were introduced into China in 1500s "fu Lang Ji". The Chinese reproduced them and developed into three main types. Dont know whether or not people in Qing dynasty called them fulangji too. The Ming Chinese used this term.

Gui Chou(癸丑) is a Chinese term used in traditional way to mark years. The years which are in Gui Chou are 1373, 1433, 1493, 1553, 1613, 1673, 1733, 1793, 1853, 1913. So there are lot of choices for its date of production. I noticed the form of address for the rank of officer in the last sentence is Wanhu 万户, this is not commonly used. Maybe from it we could narrow the scope of possible choices.

But why it is korean? Cannon man must know some stories behind it. From the lines on it hardly could I draw the conclusion that it is korean. Again, I m not an expert. The terms like Wanhu, Fu Lang Ji were not used in Qing China but continued to be used in Korea which may suggest where it came from? Hoping you guys shed some light on it.

The type of the guns from Korean Army Museum is the same (even the color of metal used to cast the gun). Then there is a group photo of mariners in a taken fort with the same type of gun barrel which lays under the feet of mariners. Then there are evidences from US mariners about the breech-loaders of the close caliber.

The year should vary from 1673 till 1853 as we are not translated the inscription in general.

The name of Manho should be Kim Deukwon. THere are no such a Commandery as Geumdeukwon in Koera in XIX.

So I am to go on with translating and verifying the inscription. But 95% it is Korean one!

Alexey.

Thanks. I just located my file on this cannon. I see that I researched it including a translation some 20 years ago. I had forgotten that a translation was done at that time, so forgive me for causing extra work.

I'll now post images including my research results dated 1987, some pages from the Naval Institute Proceedings article. I photograophed more pages of the article than I am posting, including the complete inscriptions on three other cannons. The one inscription I'm posting is on that piece the article has mistakenly associated with the date "1313." In 1987 I determined that the inscription on that cannon was identlcal to the writing on mine, except for unique data including the cannon's number and weight.

These might be better pictures of the text on the "Gun of 1313" from the US Naval Academy Museum. The translation is also shown as above. As mentioned in the 1987 document, I think the text on the "gun of 1313" is very similar to the text on my cannon.

I have not posted any more of the lengthy USNI Proceedings article. It is somewhat entertaining but also almost comical in how the author takes many small pieces of Chinese history and misconstrues, or misuses them trying to prove his point regarding when the three cannons were cast. This may be because the standards of scholarly research we are accustomed to today were not widely practiced back in 1892.